Lot Essay
Capsized during routine maintenance work at anchor in Spithead in 1782, over 900 lives were lost, including Admiral Kempenfelt and many visiting civilians and children. Presenting a major obstacle to shipping, attempts to raise her were abandoned and she was broken up in situ over a period of about sixty years, providing the test-bed for modern enclosed diving and underwater explosives in the process. Much of her timber was used for fund-raising objects of which the lot offered is an attractive example.